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Optimum is an internet/TV/phone company that routinely gives me such lousy service that I often have to write Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride from the gas station down the street. (And it shows- the Editors.)

They are running very annoying commercials at all hours of the day touting their excellent service. Ironically, their service is so bad I can only see those commercials when I am at the home of anyone else with better internet. Or at the gas station. I get better service stealing the gas station unsecured Wi-Fi than I do at home from Optimum.

The commercial begins with very serious-seeming people working on very serious-seeming stuff in a very serious setting that looks like NASA in every film you have ever seen.

The real NASA has technology about two decades older. That’s true.

How serious is this? It is so serious that these people have their fingers on the nuclear button! We’re through the looking glass, people.

Finally, they intone “Gamma is a go. Go for Gamma.” They turn their keys, push their buttons, and jump up and celebrate as the warheads launch towards North Korea. Finally, Kim Jung-un, it is put up or shut up time. No, no, not really.

They turn their keys, push their buttons, and jump up and celebrate as an old woman and a baby appear on their screens.

The woman then appears to have a stroke, making faces and odd clicking sounds at the baby, who seems to take delight in the old woman’s senility. Seriously, the woman seems less like she is trying to amuse the baby and more like she is sucking a lemon seed through a straw.

If this kid could talk he’d be calling 911.

The voice-over comes on and asks “Did we do all that just so you could make silly faces with Gamma?” Before you can say “how the heck do I know?” the voice-over answers “yes we did.”

Ah gotcha, they developed a high-tech system so you can do whatever you want, even terrorize your grandkid. Nice. Cool. WAAAAAIT A MINUTE.

Who is this ad aimed at? “Did we do all that just so you could make silly faces with Gamma?” Listen to the commercial, he emphasizes you. He’s talking to you. So who is Gamma? I, and everyone else, assumes that Gamma is the old woman, Gamma being a cutesy way of saying Grandma.

So the voiceover is saying “Did we do all that just so you could make silly faces with your grandmother?”
The kid. They are talking to the kid. Optimum is telling all the babies in the audience, all the babies who pay their household’s cable bills, to switch to Optimum so they can see funny faces from grandma. This commercial is directed at infants.

Did Optimum really make a commercial for the babies who pay internet bills demographic?The question is Imponderable.

Strange Theremin music plays in the background and continues for 45 long seconds. Music fades.

ANNOUNCER: This is Lying Awake with John Newly. Lying Awake airs seven nights a week across the country and spans the globe via the internet. Here’s your host, John Newly.

Hello, hi, and how are you? This is Lying Awake with John Newly and I’m John Newly, and you’re listening to Lying Awake with me, John Newly.There’s a lot going on in the news and we’ll jump right in to the big stories of the day, right after this.

-Promo for WKAT-AM charity Bootblack Blowout and BBQ Brunch. Bootblacks will be on hand to blacken your boots and baste your BBQ for a small donation.

ANNOUNCER: We’re back with more Lying Awake with John Newly. Here’s John Newly.

OK, let’s get right to today’s top headlines from around the country and around the world and even around the cosmos. NASA says that a meteor will pass so close to the Earth this week that it will actually be closer to Earth than the moon. With me now is our Lying Awake science professor-at-large, William C. Bogey. William, should we be alarmed about this meteor hitting the Earth?

-Hello John. Let me tell you and the audience that NASA has been LYING TO YOU! There is NO meteor heading for Earth! This is all a plot to cover up the secret alien moon bases. They’re distracting us with all this meteor nonsense to keep us from talking about the real space discoveries, like the cowboy hat the Mars rover photographed last week, or the fossilized painting of William Shatner that Neil Armstrong found on the moon. There are alien bases all over the solar system and let me tell all your listeners, John, that NASA will NEVER tell you the truth!

Wow, I always learn something new when we have William C. Bogey on. You can find his website at BigWillieStyle.com. Also in the news, a new study shows that that eating too much sugary candy can be bad for you. On the line is nutritionist Zelda Rumstock. Zelda, is it true what they say, that too much sugary candy can be bad for you?

-Yes.

In Missouri, a man panning for gold in a lake behind his house found something better than gold. He found a fossil of a rare clam. Gosh, I wonder if there was a whole prehistoric seafood dinner down there. Wouldn’t that be something? You can see all the pictures on our website. LyingAwakeOnline.com. While you’re there, take a look at my tour schedule. Next week, I’m going to be in Osaka Japan, Alberta Canada, The Falkland Islands, and someplace called “update your passport.” Oh, that’s a note to myself.

Coming up in our second hour, my guest will be Otto Mullich, a professor of psychology who claims that he has perfected the safest way to travel beneath the ocean without using expensive and bulky submarines. I’ll be back after the break. I’m John Newly and this is Lying Awake with John Newly.